Monday, June 29, 2009

"Live Every Day As if it Were Your Last"

I hear this all the time, or see it on some goofy bumper sticker or some damn fool teenager with Earth Day and unicorns and hope clearly emblazoned on the inside of their blindfold.

It’s just one of the many sayings that we, as a society, keep spurting out like automatons without ever stopping to THINK about. I’m starting to pay attention to the things the media spews forth (and I don’t just mean the punditocracy in charge of the cable networks) all in the name of happy bunny fluffy cheerful thing-are-going-to-be-ok.... as long as you stop thinking and repeat repeat repeat after me...

But most never stop and think about what this means. If this day was your last day alive and you knew it, how would you live this day out? Stop for a moment, and get scared. You’re going to die tomorrow. Not everyone else, just YOU. It doesn’t matter how or why, but know that it is a certainty.

Would you wake up early, take a shower and brush your teeth, or would you just roll out of bed, skip the deodorant and slip on your favourite jeans and first T-shirt you could find and head out the door?

Would you eat a healthy breakfast —or would you hit McDonald’s on the way out on your last big adventure?

Would you take the time to help someone with a flat tire on the side of the road, or stop and give directions to someone who was lost? Or would you be too much in a hurry to bother?

If this was your last day on Earth, knowing your last breath would arrive far too soon, would you spend everything you had and more on the things you’ve always wanted but never bought; expensive and over-the-top, as a gift or for yourself, knowing you can’t take it with you and could never pay it off?

So, drive as fast as you can with the wind in your hair, skip feeding the parking meter, keep moving, because you can smell the roses when they’re lying on your grave, or you can 'sleep when you're dead', eh?

They would most likely be smelly, fat, aimless bastards in debt up to their necks, thinking only of themselves and those they care about, to hell with the rest of us, right?

And these are the people, with smiling faces, oblivious to the world around them that you aren’t in, that cut you off in traffic, blow through the red lights in front of you, that don’t even see you because you don’t matter to them.... they are self-absorbed, self-centered, and more often than not, heard spouting cr@p like, 'Live every day like it was your last', 'Every cloud has a silver lining' or' It's always darkest before the dawn' (which, it most decidedly is NOT the case, duh.)

The next time I hear one of those “Yes we can” or “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, “You get what you ask for” “Failure is not an option” thought terminating platitudes, I’m gonna slap a “Mouth breather on board” bumper sticker on their car.

I have three of them. I made them myself.

Please, don’t live each day as if it were your last.

Seriously, those people are @ssholes.

Note from DH: On days like this, I try keep hammers and pointy objects under lock and key. I can't say that it's not a top shelf rant, however.

1 comment:

Home Sweet

Home Sweet... um... HOME!

(it may need more paint, some trim, and the wrought iron fence installed, but it's no longer "Home Sweet Derelict")

We've been happily married since 2003, together since 2000, and we thought to ourselves, "Hey, let's test the limits of our relationship!" So we're in the process of totally rehabbing an uninhabitable 1868 brick home in Covington Kentucky, for better or for worse, richer or poorer, until one of us kills the other one -- or the renovation project gets finished, of course.

This is our chronicle of our journey into rehabbing/renovation. This blog will hopefully prove to be a resource or even a DIY "renovators' manual" for those who come after us.

Our backgrounds:

She is a creative MBA who got the entrepreneurial bug in 2000, and joined her yet-to-be husband in business. While she has always been handy and crafty, Wife has no professional experience in any of the building trades, nor did any of her immediate family.

He is a long time entrepreneur and newsletter publisher. Not particularly crafty, Husband is reasonably handy and prior to this has had some experience doing stone work, repairing and rebuilding decks and doing smaller repair projects around the house.

In other words, we're rank amateurs figuring this stuff out as we go along.